Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700

Miles Pattenden

Offers a major re-assessment of the history of the early modern papacy

The first study of the politics of the early modern papacy in English

Discusses how an elite political group approached decision-making and problem-solving over a four-century period

Synthesizes recent scholarship on the papacy in Italian, French, Spanish, and German

Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700

Miles Pattenden

Description

Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 offers a radical reassessment of the history of early modern papacy, constructed through the first major analytical treatment of papal elections in English. Papal elections, with their ceremonial pomp and high drama, are compelling theatre, but, until now, no one has analysed them on the basis of the problems they created for cardinals: how were they to agree rules and enforce them? How should they manage the interregnum? How did they decide for whom to vote? How was the new pope to assert himself over a group of men who, until just moments before, had been his equals and peers?

This study traces how the cardinals' responses to these problems evolved over the period from Martin V's return to Rome in 1420 to Pius VI's departure from it in 1798, placing them in the context of the papacy's wider institutional developments. Miles Pattenden argues not only that the elective nature of the papal office was crucial to how papal history unfolded but also that the cardinals of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries present us with a unique case study for observing the approaches to decision-making and problem-solving within an elite political group.

Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700

Miles Pattenden

Table of Contents

1: Introduction 2: The Pope and His Electors 3: Methods of Election 4: The Vacant See 5: Choosing Candidates 6: The New Pope 7: Papal Government Conclusion Bibliography

Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700

Miles Pattenden

Author Information

Miles Pattenden, Research Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford

Miles Pattenden, a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, is a historian of Early Modern Catholicism. He is the author of Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter-Reformation Rome (OUP, 2013) and the co-editor of several volumes, including The Spanish Presence in Sixteenth-Century Italy (2015) and The Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal (forthcoming).

Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700

Miles Pattenden

Reviews and Awards

"This new study offers far more than its title suggests. While this book explores how popes were elected in early modern Italy, it will be remembered more for its discussion of 'the problems selection by election created for the cardinals and others who invested in the papacy as an institution'....As befits such a complex and multifaceted thesis, this study's argument is very carefully positioned in relation to recent research. Anyone looking for a primer on the current historiography of the papacy would do well to read this volume ... [it] builds an interesting new world out of a more holistic interpretation of the current scholarship. This is no small task, but he does it with patience and precision, and to the benefit of the larger field." - Jennifer Mara Desilva, Renaissance and Reformation

"fascinating, and extremely well-researched ... It is a study of the making of popes that no future historian of the papal office can afford to ignore." - Michael J. Walsh, Irish Theological Quarterly

"an amazing book, which will be an essential tool for serious scholarship on the papacy for many years to come." - Anthony F. D'Elia, History